RCEP as an Incentive for the Development of Trade and Economic Relations between ASEAN Countries and the Republic of Korea (on the example of Indonesia, Vietnam and Myanmar)

The final qualificatin work is devoted to the study of the effectiveness of such a mega-regional trade agreement (MRTTA) as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in deepening trade and economic relations between the Republic of Korea and ASEAN. RCEP, whose regulations were developed on the basis of a complex system of free trade agreements (FTAs) and regional trading systems (RTS) of ASEAN, was conceived as an agreement that would intensify trade and economic relations between its participants. The relevance of the study is emphasized by the possibility of using the experience of regional integration within the RCEP as a basis for developing new strategies for strengthening existing regional associations around the world. The work includes a comparative analysis of the agreements, using the examples of ASEAN and its members (Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar) along with the Republic of Korea, and a quantitative analysis of their interactions. The study had the following objectives: to determine the main characteristics, features and indicators of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and to characterize the advantages of RCEP in comparison in establishing relations between its participants in comparison with existing free trade agreements and free trade zones. As a result, the author was only able to partially confirm his hypothesis, revealing imperfections in the regulation of the agreement, which did not become a unifying “panacea” for the region, which is characterized by a complex RTS system. However, the development of relations between the Republic of Korea and ASEAN does have many promising opportunities that can be achieved through a competent approach to taking advantage of the RCEP benefits.